ENTRIES TAGGED "indexes"

You can start with your index.

Introduction

Here is a radical statement: A publisher’s job is to provide good APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for their books. Now that almost all books are made into digital products (that is, ebooks), good publishers of the future will be the ones who provide great APIs. In this article I am going to explore:

why I think publishers must provide good APIs

why this is actually much easier and less scary than you might think

why the old-fashioned book index should be the starting point for book APIs

Kevin Broccoli on the importance of indexes in ebooks.

In this TOC podcast interview, BIM Publishing Services CEO Kevin Broccoli talks about how indexes can and should evolve in the digital world. He says dynamic, linked indexes can be used as cross-selling tools and that index mashups are the way of the future.